How would AnachronismStew be avoided in a PeriodPiece that's meant to be serious?

I know that Anachronism Stew and Period Piece are not mutually exclusive tropes, but equally, if a creator wanted to try and make their work realistic, how could they avoid too much Anachronism Stew without getting into Critical Research Failure and ensuring they've Shown Their Work?

Especially if it's a serious work that's dealing with mature themes.

I know that Anachronism Stew can be done deliberately, but equally, how can a creator avoid audience reactions like "That sucks!! It wasn't like that in The '80s or The '90s. What's a CD player doing in a show set in 1982? I don't remember them being commonplace then and I was a teenager!" or "That series is set in 1993... I was in high school, but they sure didn't have the Porsche Boxster I saw in LA city center. What the hell is wrong?"

Unless the Porsche example was an Alternate History the reaction would make sense (as it were the Boxster did exist in 1993, but not for commercial sale, just a Cool Car concept car), but consider both these examples applying to a Dramatization of real events in The '80s or 1993, to use hypothetical situations

This is not a misplaced thread meant for the World Building part of this site's discussion - it's actually about use of the tropes.

Edited by Merseyuser1 on Feb 25th 2019 at 12:08:40 PM

The further you go back in history, the more liberties you take without causing issues with the main audience. Or you lampshade it.

Also, just do your research? Things like Present-Day Past can easily avoided by doing research and incorporating that into the writing, costumes, set, etc. If you want to make a serious Period Piece (and most Period Pieces are intended to be serious), the main things stopping you are budget and pure laziness.

Anachronism Stew is usually intentional on the creator's part.

You can have someone review your script and your production for such anachronisms and ensure that they get removed or edited out. This is a fairly obvious step to take for a major production. If you're filming a scene set in Victorian England and there's a Dodge Charger in the background (or someone references Twilight), you're going to be called out on it pretty hard.

There are some things that are less avoidable, such as: if you are filming in real locations, you can't always perfectly reconstruct the scenery in the period that you're aiming for. The capacity to fix these problems depends in large part on the production budget: can you afford expensive CG corrections, for example?

Edited by Fighteer on Feb 28th 2019 at 10:00:15 AM